Ice Loss in Antarctic Peninsula Unprecedented in 14,000 Years

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:08:00 GMT

Scientists reconstructed the ancient climate at Maxwell Bay in the South Shetland Islands. Photo: Barry Thomas via flickr. In case you wanted another piece of evidence that current melting in Antarctica is really a product of global warming, researchers of the UK's National Oceanography Centre, Southampton say that the widespread loss of glacial ice in the Antarctic Peninsula is unprecedented in the past 14,000 years:... Read the full story on TreeHugger

REDD Forest Protection Scheme Still Missing Key Safeguards as Barcelona Climate Talks Close

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:20:00 GMT

photo: Felix Francis via flickr. As the last official negotiations before the COP15 climate talks came to a close in Barcelona, progress on REDD forest protection scheme negotiations hit a new low. That's the word from the Ecosystems Climate Alliance, which says several key safeguards, as well as explicit language protecting intact forests, are missing: ... Read the full story on TreeHugger

200 of the World's Dirtiest Power Plants Revealed - 60% are in the US & East Asia

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 12:05:00 GMT

Full map here: Interactive: The World's Dirtiest Power Plants It's interactive map time! Forbes.com has a really cool map showing 200 of the dirtiest power plants in the world (hat tip to Earth First...) that's worth checking out. Scroll down for some highlights:... Read the full story on TreeHugger

Palm Oil in the Spotlight: Plantations Threaten Rare Cats, Peatland Emissions Increasing + A Small Victory

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 10:51:00 GMT

It looks like forest, but it's a palm oil plantation... photo: sampsadaily via flickr. Three stories coming in focusing on deforestation, climate change and biodiversity: Scientists point out that when it comes to carbon emissions from peatland loss SE Asia leads the way; development of palm oil plantations on Borneo is threatening several of the world's rarest cats; and (a small bright spot in this) palm oil producers in the rest of the world pledge to not create new plantations on peatlands:... Read the full story on TreeHugger

Why a Strong COP15 Agreement Doesn't Matter... For Cleantech Investment

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 16:21:00 GMT

photo: David Blaikie via flickr. With all the disappointing news about the UN climate negotiation talk shifting for reaching a legally binding deal in December to one which is merely politically binding, I thought I'd share this rather encouraging piece on analysis from Cleantech Group, which says the outcome of COP15 really doesn't matter much for cleantech investment:... Read the full story on TreeHugger

Lobbying Against Climate Change Progress Multinational, Powerful, and (Apparently) Successful

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:41:00 GMT

National emissions; interactive version of this map: The Center for Policy Integrity Throughout the summer and we saw all sorts of citizens campaigns in opposition to the climate bill winding its way through Congress, most of which turned out to be in fact organized by one or the other fossil fuel group. Now, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists has completed a study showing that that sort of obstructionist lobbying and activism isn't just taking place in the United States, or even just in developed nations, but is taking place throughout the world:... Read the full story on TreeHugger

Senate Committee Passes Climate Bill, Despite Republican Boycott

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 13:46:00 GMT

Thought the Senate climate bill was on hold all thanks to an ongoing three-day Republican boycott of Environment and Public Works Committee activity? Think again. Using some side-stepping parliamentary procedures, committee chair Barbara Boxer (D-CA), has managed to get the bill passed by a vote of 11-to-1, AFP reports:... Read the full story on TreeHugger

With Legally Binding Copenhagen Deal Dead in the Water, Where Do We Go From Here?

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 13:17:00 GMT

photo: anoldent via flickr. I hate to say this, because pressure absolutely needs to be kept up on politicians in the next few weeks before COP15, but the green community needs to read the writing on the wall and start moving beyond Copenhagen. Despite a few policy notables, all signs point to no legally binding deal in December; and, let's be realistic, no amount of protest is going to align political will with scientific necessity at this point:... Read the full story on TreeHugger

KLM Schedules First Biofuel Test Flight With Passengers

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 10:07:00 GMT

photo: abdallahh via flickr. Mark your calendars for November 23rd. That's when the first aviation biofuel test flight with passengers aboard is scheduled to take place, and the first test flight in Europe. Dutch airline KLM has announced that "a select group of passengers" will be ride in a Boeing 747 powered in one engine by a mixture of 50% bio-kerosene and 50% conventional aviation fuel:... Read the full story on TreeHugger

Bucking the Trend, Stern & Pachauri Maintain a Global Climate Deal Still Possible in Copenhagen

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:05:00 GMT

photo: Christa Uymatiao via flickr. With the needle of expectation tilting towards no full climate deal being reached in Copenhagen, two of the most prominent voices in the climate change policy world -- Lord Nicholas Stern and Dr Rajendra Pachauri -- maintain that a global agreement is still possible in six weeks:... Read the full story on TreeHugger

Great White Sharks Along California Coast Are Unique Population - Haven't Met Outsiders in 10,000+ Years

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:44:00 GMT

photo: Hermanus Backpackers via flickr. Mongabay is pointing out a really pretty cool piece of shark research from Proceedings of the Royal Society B: The great white sharks along California's coast were previously thought to roam far and wide, but we now know that the California population is distinct and hasn't mixed with other white sharks for tens of thousands of years:... Read the full story on TreeHugger

Indian Oil Corporation Partners With PetroAlgae - Fifth Oil Major to Back Algae Biofuels

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 10:55:00 GMT

photo: PetroAlgae And then there were five... Indian Oil Corporation has become the fifth major oil company to stake a claim in the world of algae biofuels. IOCL has a signed a memorandum of understanding with Florida-based PetroAlgae to license micro-crop technologies for "future large-scale production of renewable fuels."... Read the full story on TreeHugger

Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Deforestation & Forest Degradation Overestimated by IPCC

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 10:10:00 GMT

photo: Wagner T. Cassimiro via flickr. New research published in Nature Geoscience shows that the oft-used figure for the contribution of deforestation towards total carbon dioxide is a bit too high. Rather than 20%, as was estimated by the 2007 IPCC report and which would mean that deforestation emissions were greater than the global transport sector, a more accurate estimate is 12%:... Read the full story on TreeHugger

More Cities Means More Warming, Sure - But More Agricultural Land Means More Cooling?

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 16:07:00 GMT

photo: susteph via flickr. A new study of the effect of land use changes on surface temperatures demonstrates what anyone who lives in a city intuitively knows: Urban areas are hotter than the surrounding countryside -- the heat island effect has been well demonstrated for a while -- but what's interesting is that researchers have found a switch from forest to agricultural land actually has a cooling effect:... Read the full story on TreeHugger

Volcanic Rift in Ethiopian Desert Confirmed As Beginning of New Sea

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 12:40:00 GMT

photo: thebigmonkey via flickr. A 35-mile long volcanic rift in the Ethiopian desert that opened up back in 2005 has been confirmed as likely being the beginning of a new sea. That's the word from an international team of scientists, whose work has been published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters: ... Read the full story on TreeHugger

36% of World's Flora and Fauna Now Threatened With Extinction

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 12:24:00 GMT

The monitor lizard is under threat due to habitat loss and hunting by humans for food. All images: ICUN. The latest update to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species is in and if you were expecting good news prepared to be disappointed. Of the more than 47,000 species surveyed, about 17,000 are at serious risk -- of those 21% of the world's mammal species, 12% of birds, 28% of reptiles, 30% of amphibians, 35% of invertebrates, 37% of freshwater fish and 70% of plants:... Read the full story on TreeHugger

25% of Zimbabwe's Rhinos Killed in Past Three Years by Gangster Poachers

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 11:48:00 GMT

photo: derekkeats via flickr. As if Zimbabwe didn't have enough problems: The Economic Times forwards on the news that Zimbabwe's director of national parks has told a parliamentary committee that one-quarter of the nation's rhinoceros population has been killed by poachers, just in the last three years:... Read the full story on TreeHugger

50 African Nations Stage Boycott at Barcelona Climate Talks - Demand Discussion of Deeper Emission Cuts

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 09:47:00 GMT

photo: Adopt a Negotiator via flickr. A boycott by 50 African nations at the Barcelona climate talks has forced cancellation of several technical meetings, Economic Times reports. At issue are the weak emission reductions targets offered up by the rich nations of the world, which is the only topic the African nations said they were willing to discuss:... Read the full story on TreeHugger

No Snows on Kilimanjaro by 2030 as Glaciers Continue Their Rapid Retreat

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:32:00 GMT

photo: Stig Nygaard via flickr. New research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences calculates for the first time the volume of ice lost from Mount Kilimanjaro's snowfields and the prognosis isn't good. From 1912-2007, the mountain's iconic glaciers have decreased some 85%, with 26% of glacier present in 2000 now gone:... Read the full story on TreeHugger

Hey United States, Show Us Your 2020 Emission Reduction Target - Climate Talks Enter Home Stretch

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 15:50:00 GMT

Sunrise over Barcelona photo: Andrew Larson via flickr. We're really into the pre-COP15 negotiating home stretch now, with talks moving to Barcelona, and initial reports aren't exactly encouraging: An IEA official says negotiators aren't ready to solve any of the problems on the table; while pressure builds on the United States to actually commit to a meaningful 2020 emission reductions target:... Read the full story on TreeHugger

Ginormous Sahara Solar Power Project to Produce First Electricity in 2015

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 14:20:00 GMT

image: Desertec It's been a couple of months since we've had an update about the mammoth solar power in the Sahara desert project otherwise known as Desertec. Last we left it, though the idea had been around for a while, a consortium to make the dream real was just in the works. Well, another step forward has now been taken, with the official legal formation of DII GmbH:... Read the full story on TreeHugger

Jargon Watch: Is a Nation Climate-Fit or Climate-Weak?

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 13:09:00 GMT

photo: Meena Kadri via flickr. While climate change may pay no heed to human political boundaries, how well people cope with the effects of a global warming can have a lot to do with those boundaries. Some countries are climate-fit while others are climate-weak, argues a new piece by Gaia Vance in Yale Environment 360. Now, a number of factors determine how climate-fit or climate-weak a place is, which Vance elaborates, but this is the gist of it:... Read the full story on TreeHugger

Climate Change May Kill 250,000 Kids Next Year - Many More to Die Annually by 2030

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 11:15:00 GMT

photo: 200 More Montreal Stencils via flickr. Now here's one to tug at your climate change heartstrings... A new report from Save the Children highlights the impact that global warming is having on the world's children and how many more will be put at risk in the coming decades. The stats: Climate change could kill 250,000 children next year, and 400,000 annually by 2030:... Read the full story on TreeHugger

Yosemite National Park to Have 20% More Wildfires by 2050 - And They'll Be Stronger, Too

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 09:54:00 GMT

photo: azdiaz1002 via flickr. We've covered how global warming is going to change California on a number of occasions in a broad context, but here's something a bit more granular: BBC News is highlighting how decreased snowpack and increased lightning strikes are going to cause wildfire flare ups in Yosemite National Park:... Read the full story on TreeHugger

Sopogy SolarFlare Brings Solar Thermal Power to Commercial Rooftops

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:15:00 GMT

image: Sopogy When you think of solar power on roofs your quite naturally think of photovoltaic panels or solar hot water heaters. Well, expand that idea a bit: Anaheim, California-based Sopogy has just deputed the first commercially available solar thermal system for industrial rooftops:... Read the full story on TreeHugger

Multiyear Arctic Sea Ice Practically Gone - Not in the Future, Today

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 13:35:00 GMT

You can't navigate through multiyear ice... photo: arcticroute.com via flickr. You've probably seen all sort of predictions about when the Arctic will see it's first ice-free summer in, umm, all of human history. Well, the University of Manitoba's David Barber, just returned from an expedition to examine multi-year ice in the Beaufort Sea, has told Reuters that, for all practical purposes we're already there:... Read the full story on TreeHugger

Nobel Prize-Winning Economist Shows the Commons Doesn't Always End in Tragedy

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 12:55:00 GMT

Cattle used to graze in Boston Commons until 1830... photo: David Berkowitz via flickr. If you've been around the environmental movement for more than a week you've surely heard someone toss out the notion of the tragedy of the commons. It's fully established as conventional economic and environmental wisdom at this point. But should it be? Cool Green Science is highlighting an article in Science by none other than newly-Nobel Prize winning economist Elinor Ostrom, which shows that a commonly-held resource doesn't always mean ecological tragedy:... Read the full story on TreeHugger

Next Stop COP15! Kyoto-Copenhagen Train to Tout Climate Change Awareness & Sustainable Transport

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 11:05:00 GMT

Not the actual train... photo: Craig Nagy via flickr. While not a substitute for practical action, I'm a big fan of the symbolic, so this next one is pretty cool: The UNEP has just announced that a one-time train link between Kyoto and Copenhagen will be opened. The single carriage to run along the route will be driven by train operators from around the world and will carry "environmental experts and climate change campaigners":... Read the full story on TreeHugger

Atlantic Bluefin Tuna Ban Supported by Fishing Commission Scientists' Data

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 09:56:00 GMT

For at least the past eighteen months there have been consistent cries that a fishing ban on Atlantic bluefin tuna was required to prevent the iconic species being relegated to extinction. Now, scientists at the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas say (finally) that position is supported by data indicating the species has declined so much it should be listed under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species: ICCAT scientists just met in Madrid to assess current stock levels and found that the current spawning biomass is less that 15% of historical levels. Only a Fishing Ban Can Save Bluefin Greenpeace and WWF hailed the announcement. Dr Sergi Tudela from WWF Mediterranean said, "What's needed to save the stocks is a suspension of fishing activity and a suspension of international commercial trade -- this is the only possible package that can give this fish a chance to recover."... Read the full story on TreeHugger

Only One-Sixth of European Retailers Showing Sustainable Palm Oil Progress

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:52:00 GMT

photo: fitri agung via flickr. Back in the spring WWF said that they found that while plenty of companies had committed to using sustainable palm oil, only a tiny percentage of the available oil was actually being purchased and they would start outing companies not living up to their commitments. Well, the Palm Oil Buyers' Scorecard for European companies has arrived:... Read the full story on TreeHugger

Recent Posts by TreeHugger's Matthew McDermott, New York, NY